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Ever dreamed of visiting Paris and taking in the breathtaking views atop the Eiffel Tower? Now you can, without the need for a plane ticket or passport.

Google on Tuesday expanded its Street View imagery to the top of the Eiffel Tower, giving armchair travelers a look at the City of Light from the iconic French monument. Google employees trekked the Street View Trolley, a push-cart outfitted with a massive camera, to the top two floors of the tower to capture brand-new 360-degree photographs of the monument's architecture and its views over Paris.

In addition to the new imagery, the Google Cultural Institute teamed up with Eiffel Tower Operating Company to bring three new exhibitions to the Web capturing the magic of the Eiffel Tower. The exhibitions feature nearly 50 archival images, plans, engravings, and photos telling the story of how the Eiffel Tower was made and its impact in the 19th century.

Designed by Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889 after more than two years of construction. It stands at 1,063 feet and was the highest monument in the world for more than 40 years. Today almost 7 million visitors a year flock to the Eiffel Tower, making it one of the most visited monuments in the world.

"As a product manager and designer, it's been awe-inspiring to get to see the spectacular vision and the detailed architectural capabilities exemplified by the plans more than 100 years ago," Mark Yoshitake, head of product and user experience at the Google Cultural Institute, wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "It required tremendous knowledge of special planning and physics to ensure that 18,000 separately made pieces would come together as one."

Google has been busy expanding Street View as of late. The company last month introduced imagery for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building.

Angela has been a PCMag reporter since January 2012. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a reporter for SC Magazine, covering everything related to hackers and computer security. Angela has also written for The Northern Valley Suburbanite in New Jersey, The Dominion Post in West Virginia, and the Uniontown-Herald Standard in Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of West Virginia University's Perely Isaac Reed School of Journalism.
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